We didn't want to touch this topic for a number of reasons, but chief among them is that dying in front of an audience is never easy. Some have the ability and talent to pull it off. Some don't. When the death is unintentional, the best thing to do is to avert the eyes.
Stephen Colbert died April 30th. It was a slow painful death.
The closest approximation to it is a "routine" that nearly killed Chevy Chase's career. In both instances, it wasn't due to being "nasty" or "mean" -- it was because they lacked the ability to pull the moment off.
Steve Martin could have taken any of the lines Colbert delivered and made them funny. Colbert isn't Martin. It's the same reason Jon Stewart can't hit out of the park when he hosts the Oscars, there's really nothing to pull an in-person audience in.
On The Daily Show, Colbert is doing Cher from her first attempts at co-hosting a variety show -- ignoring the audience and interacting with Sonny, er Stewart. When the marriage broke up and Cher went solo, she had to learn to relate to the audience.
Colbert can't. So you were treated to a lengthy monologue that wasn't shaped (no highs, no lows, just a steady drone) though it had been rehearsed at length.
It was like watching the kid who shows up at school on Monday repeating the funny lines from Saturday Night Live.
There are a number of reasons those attending were offended and one of the chief ones was that Colbert just wasn't funny. He can do sketch comedy, he couldn't work up delivering an entertaining monologue last Sunday.
Dennis Leary could have done the routine word for word (though we think he would change it some -- at least "wife" to "spouse") and it would have been funny. It has to do with the quality that makes someone a star and someone a second banana (or worse). Colbert has no sparkle. There is no quality that pulls you to him.
In its best moments, the monologue had some genuinely funny lines. They were written funny. They just weren't delivered in a funny manner.
Nor did the routine breathe as Colbert plowed from one joke to the next. It was an amateur trying to entertain and, don't let American Idol fool you, that's rarely entertaining or amusing.
Some are offering the opinion that it was meant to implode as though Colbert was the next Andy Kaufman if not the next Lenny Bruce. That's not reality. The act was supposed to "kill" but the only death was Colbert's.
The mainstream media took a pass on Colbert in their coverage of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. There a number of reasons for that. One reason is that many felt insulted. Another reason is that it wasn't funny and, having been insulted, to then call Colbert out for not being funny would seem like so much sour grapes.
Someone comes to your home and spits on your dining room floor, you don't make an effort to sing their praises (or publicize the occurrence). Which is what happened. The dinner was supposed to be about the press. It was as though Colbert had gone to a banquet for Little League baseball and done twenty minutes on coaches molesting their charges.
That does happen. And what Colbert was commenting on, the suck up nature of the DC press, is very real. But if you're going to insult your audience and expect them to laugh, you better do it with some style.
Colbert had none in evidence.
Not everyone present knew who he was. (We spoke to fourteen people who attended the dinner for this article.) Those who did know of him vaguely were a little more informed than many handing out shout outs and back slaps online.
Editor & Publisher (as Rebecca pointed out) was among those leading the charge for "Why aren't they talking about this!" Editor & Publisher took a pass on an offensive remark he made.
Let's go back to the Little Leage analogy because it's almost a sports analogy and conventional wisdom lovers love those. Let's say you're a young girl or parent of one attending. You have a right to feel that you or your daughter is included because she's demonstrated that she can play Little League. So when the entertainer's remarks render her invisible, you have a right to be offended. (Four we spoke to used the term "outraged.") Which is what happened when Colbert went down a list of daily events in the life of a member of the DC press including "Make love to your wife."
This routine was written in advance, it was rehearsed and rehearsed. There's no excuse for that line making it into the "performance." At a time when Jill Carroll's kidnapping is still a point of discussion within the press, rendering all women invisible with that sexist remark wasn't a way to endear.
It was offensive. (Rebecca's gone into why at length.)
The prop-giving net doesn't want to tackle that. They want to look the other way. The same way they look the other way (or maybe they're just not informed) on how offensive their celebrated hero has been to Asian-Americans. "Ching-Chong Ding-Dong" may have entertained our shout-out netties, but it didn't entertain many Asian-Americans. And there was talk, before Colbert went on, about "Ching-Chong Ding-Dong" and why the man infamous for that was speaking at the dinner?
(Why was he chosen? Because someone like that really does help set the tone for a Bully Boy America.)
Colbert flopped. Flop-sweat flowed from him. There's not much expected at the dinners. It's why a Baby Cries a Lot or Mark Russell can garner polite chuckles. Neither man's set the world on fire. They're pedistrarian, but they are comics.
Colbert isn't. He's a writer. He's a television performer. He's not a successful standup comedian and the routine was as painful to watch as Colin Quinn's attempt at anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.
Reciting lines is not a performance.
But we saw (again) the most ridiculous nonsense as people on the left rushed in to prop up the performance as one of the funniest in recent times.
That's offensive. It's offensive not merely because we have enough delusions in Bully Boy's America without the left and supposed left adding to the mix.
It's offensive because it frequently seems these days that everything (anything?) a man does gets trumpeted. Take a speech given on the TV show Boston Legal. Now James Spader's character's speech deserved applause (but Spader didn't write it, folks). However, the same week, there was a much more meaningful moment on ER that addressed the war. There were no hosannas coming from our quick-to-give-shout-outs net for that moment. One involved a White male and the other an Aisan-American woman. Was that the reason?
Whatever the reason, the applause for Colbert is a bit like when the left worked itself into a lather trying to give Howard Stern props. It wasn't enough to merely wish him good luck in his battle with Clear Channel. We were supposed to find him "funny" as well.
Funny?
It's amazing how willing some of the left are to lower their standards. They'll say they're inclusive. They'll say they welcome all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders (male, female and trans) but let any group object to the way they're portrayed and suddenly it's: "Where is your sense of humor!"
Howard Stern's offensive. We don't think it's offensive in the manner that should lead to fines, we do think it's offensive in the manner that people should think twice before singing his praises.
It's the same thing with Colbert.
"Where is the line?" Ruth asked.
It's a good question. He's offended Asian-Americans with stereotypical characterization but we're supposed to overlook that. He made a sexist remark in his overly praised non-performance and we're supposed to overlook that as well.
Exactly where is the line?
How desperate are we for heroes?
Not desperate enough to note Parminder Nagra's Dr. Neela Rasgotra. Looking High and Low for heroes apparently means looking White and Male.
A net so quick to ignore Nargra while they rush to applaud Spader surprises no one when Colbert's treatment of Asian-Americans and women is overlooked as they rush to cheer: "What a man! What a man! What a man!"
It's offensive. Democracy Now! aired the clip. With the sexist remark. It's a news broadcast. Their angle was no one was talking about it in the mainstream. We could understand that, we could've lived without it, but we could understand it.
We couldn't understand the need for a (White) gay male to note the "performance" on a non-news show. (Note it more than once. And sing its praises.) We'll assume when Colbert goes off on gay men, radio guy will want us to have his back? Why he thinks that's warranted after he's looked the other way with regards to sexism and racism, we have no idea. Friday, CounterSpin played the clip. CounterSpin is a program that evaluates, offers critiques. So it was distressing when they played the clip with no comment on the rank sexism. (It was also embarrassing considering that Monday's immigrant rallies across the nation were among many worthy topics to examine that got lost around the net as so many played rally 'round Colbert -- who, for the record, wasn't under attack. This wasn't 1991 and he wasn't Roseanne.)
We'll repeat: How desparate are we for heroes?
We must be pretty hard up. Maybe that's because we're looking for the Great White (Male) Hope?
This is a pattern that's emerging. A woman does something and she's not noted. (A woman of any color, any sexual orientation, any ethnicity.) A White Male (presumably straight) does something and we're supposed to overlook racism and sexism as we rise for an online standing ovation.
It doesn't cut it.
Just as with the DLC attempts to Whiten and Male-Up the Democratic Party, we see something similar happen online. Whether it's because people are uninformed or they just don't care, we have no idea.
Intentionally or not, a message is sent and people are offended -- the people who've been fighting all along, not the ones hopping onto the bandwagon. But apparently they're as unimportant to many online voices and sites as they are to the Democratic Party.
We're seeing a similar thing with regards to Neil Young's album. Like Kat, we both think Living With War is a great album. ("We" is Ava and C.I. for those who don't read carefully before penning their hate mail.) But it's really strange, this need to obliterate all the voices that have been raised in song against the administration to act as though Young's the first. That includes independent artists (who possibly aren't as well known, it doesn't appear that independent media is widely known on the net -- but that may just be due to the fact that so many seem keen to set themselves up as playas -- watch closely as the new Michael Kinsleys and Cokie Roberts are birthed before your eyes) as well as mainstream audiences.
Young is building on the work of others -- and we don't just mean the strange similarities to Bruce Springsteen songs circa Born in the U.S.A. We're happy to welcome his album. We're just not willing to act as though Michelle Shocked, Green Day, Ben Harper, Anais Mitchell, Michael Franti, Patti Smith, Rickie Lee Jones, Cowboy Junkies, Bright Eyes and others haven't already been exploring the territory.
We hope others follow Young's example but we won't say we hope they follow "Young's lead" because he's following the path that many others have paved. We'll listen to the music and enjoy it for the music and the passion but forgive us if we're a bit wary of embracing Young. Hopefully, his eyes have opened. But we're not going to act as though his past actions and statements didn't take place.
Angry Military Man (incestually related to Eurythmic's "Missionary Man"?) has taken a very long leak on the peace movement. He's now doing it in public and we keep hoping he gets picked up for indecent exposure. (Yes, that works on many levels.) But the only reason he's in the position to pull it out and splash is because the left treated him as Jesus, Buddah, Goddess and Muhammed. Most human beings have value (we'd say "all" but then we're confronted with the administration). You can learn from, and take from, many. You don't need to cheerlead them and set them up as the voice of the left -- especially not at the expense of true voices of the left.
But that happens repeatedly. We're not sure whether it's just a hunger for heroes in bleak times or if it's a concentrated effort to designate the "acceptable" as heroes?
We do know that Angry Military Man has taken repeated jabs at Cindy Sheehan and is only growing more emboldened and vocal. That's because he's allowed to. Why he is allowed to, why he's not called out on his crap goes to heart of the problem. The efforts to rehabilitate Neil Young, Stephen Colbert or Angry Military Man aren't efforts about the peace movement.
If a leader emerges, that's wonderful. (And many have.) But this need to knock the people who came before and set up others as leaders is offensive. It's only more so when you notice that the ones who keep getting set up are (no surprise) White Males.
We think Bully Boy (with the help of many) has retooled the United States into a masculinist vision. We're aware that, as one friend said on the phone regarding the press dinner, "Maybe after six years, we're unable to think except in the framework he's imposed?" (He being the Bully Boy.) That's a danger. We respond on the same level the Bully Boy acts. And we all go "round and round in the circle game." (Nod to Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game.")
We can stop it. But it won't be with dishonesty. It won't come from lying that someone was amazing when they weren't. The Bully Boy already traffics in dishonesty and delusion, there's no need for any elements of the left (on any point of the spectrum) to follow suit.
As another told us, "I wasn't expecting any form of tikkun olam, I was expecting to be entertained and wasn't." That's reality. When you've left the reality-based community and moved over to the world of Bully Boy, we're not sure how much help you are to anyone? When you whitewash "hate and call it love" (with another nod to Joni Mitchell, "Dog Eat Dog"), we're not sure if you're doing it because you're caught up in the cycle or you just don't give a damn about many in this country.
When CounterSpin airs the comments of someone the Asian-American community has been calling out for months (and his on air "apology" only inflamed the issue more), we find it sad. When the aired comments include the sexist remark with no critique of it, we scratch our heads.
We think the left has compromised itself quite enough in terms of party politics over the last forty years and fail to see how compromising ourselves with regards to the voices we choose to highlight and grant attention to helps us break that pattern.
The sexist remark in the speech wasn't sponatenous. It was written ahead of time and rehearsed ahead of time. It was intended, not tossed out. Ignoring it doesn't serve anyone. It doesn't serve a cause (be it the left or press criticism), it doesn't serve the audience (which is made up of more than White Males). It does send a message, intended or not, and the message is: "Laugh or shut up! We need this White Man more than we need you!" We don't see that message turning out crowds at the next demonstration.